I Daily Crest SWAAA Junior Championships (irangemouth Sports Stadium. Kersie Road. Grar’tgemouth. All day. Rest assured that the 'Junior' classification refers to the linder-20category. and competitors will be looking to win places in the team who will tackle Northern Ireland at Dumirieson July 15.

Ol the 16 meetings taking place, two are to be held in the UK, these being the Miller Lite event at Meadowbank on 7 July and the Royal Mail Parcels games at Crystal Palace on 14July. While the London venue has been used since 1985, Edinburgh was awarded a place on the circuit for the lirst time last year and no doubt the organisers are happy to continue the arrangement, given that Scottish tans turned up in very large numbers twelve months ago.

Since then, a new set at Olympic medals have been handed out (and in one or two cases taken back) and some oi the recipients will be competing at Meadowbank, including Liniord Christie, Yvonne Murray, Colin Jackson, Liz McColgan, Paul Ereng, Roger Kingdom and Calvin Smith.

Rather than represent national teams, individuals participate lor themselves in the hope oi accumulating enough points throughout the series to win event titles (each carrying a prize 01 810,000, to be deposited in a Trust Fund) and maybe even the $25,000 which comes gilt-wrapped with overall victory. Last season, these two main honours went to Said Aouita in the Men's section and Romania’s Paula Ivan in the Women's. Despite deleating Scotland’s Tom McKean in last year’s Miller Lite, Aouita is guaranteed a warm welcome at Meadowbanlr. As world record holder in both the 1500m and 5000m, injury denied him the victories at Seoul that were most surely his by right.

Said Aoiuta. Photo Mark Shearman. Matching him here, against Kenyan Peter Rono, the Olympic Champion in the 1500m, this must rank as one oi the most eagerly anticipated contests at this season.

Another Kenyan and Olympic Champion at 800m, Paul Ereng, promises to continue the lorm which has already given him the lastest time this year, 1min 44.01sec, as well as the scalp 01 Steve Cram, who iound himseli trailing by an embarrassing number at yards at the recent Expo'92 in Seville.

Britain’s Liniord Christie (who nearly lost his 100m silver medal due to the inadvertent consumption at the banned substance, pseudo-ephedrine) is hoping to make an attempt on the 150m world record, which at 14.83ec is currently held by Italy’s Pietro Mennea. Despite his briel and unlortunate dalliance with one 01 the more active ingredients in Ginseng, Christie is a

tremendous ad lor athletics, especially the sprint events. In both the 100m and 150m, he laces the kind oi world class competition which could spur him on to win. (Mike Wilson)